Turkish police fire tear gas at Istanbul protests

90 wounded and 142 people detained in clashes after May day rallies push
towards Taksim Square in defiance of ban

Riot police use water cannon to disperse protesters during a May Day demonstration in IstanbulPhoto: REUTERS

By Abigail Fielding-Smith and agencies

2:33PM BST 01 May 2014

Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannons on Thursday as May Day protests pushed towards Istanbul’s Taksim Square in defiance of a ban.

The authorities deployed thousands of riot police and blocked access to Taksim Square, the focus of weeks of anti-government protests last summer.

Flag-waving demonstrators, some throwing fireworks and stones, breached barricades in Besiktas, a neighbourhood near Taksim on the shores of the Bosphorus, before police forced them back into side streets.

90 people were wounded in the clashes, according to a statement from the Istanbul governor's office, of whom 19 were police offers. 142 people were detained, the statement said.

In the working class Okmeydani district, members of leftist groups threw fire bombs and fireworks at police, who responded with rubber pellets and tear gas.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who warned last week against efforts to march on Taksim, has cast both last year's street protests and a corruption scandal dogging his government since December as part of a plot to undermine him.

The Istanbul governor's office said it had advance information that "illegal terror organisations and their extensions" would resort to violence to stoke unrest.

Mr Erdogan said last week he would not let unions march on Taksim and the government suggested instead the gathering should take place at a venue on the outskirts of Istanbul. The unions rejected that idea.

"We will be in Taksim despite the irrational and illegal ban. All roads will lead to Taksim on May Day, and our struggle for labour, equality, freedom, justice and peace will continue," the main unions said in a joint statement on Wednesday.